The present invention relates to a method for verifying genuineness/counterfeit of goods by using IC tags mounted to the goods and an equipment using the method. The “IC tag” referred to herein generally terms a minute device having the function of transmitting information by radio and designates a semiconductor chip, μ chip, general RFID or the like.
In recent years, purchase of goods based on utilization of electronic money and credit cards has been prevailing actively and a decrease in the amount of banknotes in circulation is in prospect but oppositely, purchase of goods based on utilization of paper currency is still active at present. This can be demonstrated clearly by an increase in the issue amount of banknotes. On the other hand, the number of cases of illegal access to automatic teller machines as exemplified by the use of counterfeit banknotes has been increasing extremely nowadays. Accordingly, paper currency incorporating various kinds of security has been developed newly in every country. Also, from the standpoint of fakes, sophisticated forgeries of brand articles have been on the market as internationalization advances and countermeasures thereagainst have been of importance. Besides, a producer per se of a brand article sometimes makes a counterfeit from the same material as that of the brand article and for discrimination of the genuine article, it is necessary not to inspect the quality of the article per se but to check information as to whether the article is recognized by a legal maker.
Under the circumstances as above, mounting IC tags to a banknote or goods or an article added with an authentication function based on IC tags has recently been the most promising. This is the way to discriminate counterfeits from genuine goods by using information incorporated in an IC tag. For example, JP-A-2003-58856 entitled “Anticounterfeit Print Medium with Built in Microminiaturized IC Chip, and Anticounterfeit Printed Matter” proposes that a single or a plurality of semiconductor chips are embedded at a specified area in a paper-like goods. JP-A-2001-283011 entitled “Security Having Semiconductor Chip” proposes a method of grading up countermeasures against forging through disguised intention by preparing for negotiable securities having semiconductor chips a chip capable of sending information therein and another chip incapable of sending information therein.